AMD to Set to Make Important Strategy Announcement Next Week

Advanced Micro Devices has announced that its top executives will host a news conference to provide updates and more detail on the company’s ambidextrous strategy. The news conference will take place in San Francisco, California, on Monday, October 29.

During the press conference, Rory Read, chief executive officer, and Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of global business units, as well as an unknown “special guest” will discuss the company’s wide strategy going forward. Ambidextrous strategy involves creation of system-on-chip solutions featuring technologies that were developed in-house as well as those designed by other companies. The strategy is aimed to enable AMD to target markets that require intellectual property AMD simply does not own.

The company naturally provided no details about the forthcoming announcement. However, knowing what the ambidextrous strategy is about, it is logical to expect AMD to announce specific plans or maybe even deals. Earlier this year AMD already said it would integrate ARM Cortex-A5 processing core into its ultra-mobile SoCs to provide advanced security mechanisms developed by ARM. In order to better compete for smartphones and tablets, AMD needs communication, image processing, touch processing and a number of other IPs, which it will need to license from the outside.

It is interesting to note that AMD invited a mysterious guest to the press conference, but not its chief technology officer (CTO) Mark Papermaster, who has worked on the strategy for several quarters already. Potentially, the special guest might be a strategic partner of AMD, who will play a critical role in the execution of the ambidextrous strategy.

AMD recently announced plans to reduce the company’s expenses so that the break-even point would be reached with revenues of around $1.3 billion. To do so, AMD will lay off 15% of its employees in Q4 2012 and will consolidate its sites.